


The Tomb

by crayonbreakygal



Category: The Handmaid's Tale (TV)
Genre: Death, Drama, Gen, Remembering the Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 20:33:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19893931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayonbreakygal/pseuds/crayonbreakygal
Summary: June remembers all the people that died in the building where she waited.  Season two.





	The Tomb

**Author's Note:**

> One, I am not done watching season two. Two, I haven't read any fics whatsoever in this fandom. Three, I wrote this in first person because it seemed it would work better, particularly since June's voice is often used in voice over during an episode. Four I totally made up all these people. So if you haven't watched season two, you'll be spoiled. This is rated M mostly for talk of death and cursing.

The Tomb

Oh, the irony. All the papers that sat around me (banned and totally illegal), organized into batches, by date, year. It had taken me days just to figure out how to organize the stash. I thought they would have burned them all, just like they had all the books. They certainly had taken the bodies away once they had been lined up in front of a firing squad. Or did they die from all those nooses still hanging from the railing?

What had they done to get that treatment? Reporters. All of them pledged to tell the truth. The truth that swam before my eyes. We were doomed as a society, to live under a rule that was unjust and downright scary.

I twisted my hands as I looked at each headline, printed in the weeks before I’d been taken, before so many fertile women had been taken against their will. If you weren’t part of their elite or worked for the elite, you were banished to the Colonies doing god knew what. I surmised early on it wasn’t good, most likely being exposed to the harsh environment that had been created while the war had raged. It was where they had probably sent Emily, once she had run over that guard. It was where countless other Handmaidens had been sent after their usefulness had expired. It was where people who had no hope had been sent to never be seen again. It was probably where I would be sent once my child was born. If I hadn’t run. If Nick hadn’t set this up.

Nick. Oh, poor Nick, I groaned. Did he know that I was just using him? A means to an end. A way to let off steam. Two bodies joined as one. I didn’t love him. I liked him but didn’t know whether I could trust him. How could I love him? He wasn’t from before. He had bought into this whole scheme, this whole mixed up, fucked up mess that was Gilead. Or at least he had bought into it enough to pass for one of the faithful.

I had done enough to get by, to seem meek in their eyes. I wasn’t Janine, who would frequently go off the deep end. I wasn’t Emily, who was finally outed, but then forgiven because she was a commodity. She lost part of her body in the process. Just like Janine had lost her eye. Just like plenty of other women had lost their freedom, their autonomy, their very lives to give birth to monsters mostly. Real births were rare. Janine had been lucky. Very lucky. Would I be so lucky?

The problem was I didn’t exactly know who the father was. It was probably Nick since Serena had briefly mentioned that Fred was probably sterile. The percentages were in Nick’s favor. Plus, the fact that I had screwed Nick much more than I had let Fred touch me. My skin crawled every time Fred turned my way. But I played the game if just to gain knowledge or a privilege. How little Serena knew about the games I played. Stupid cunt.

How much had the reporters of the Boston Globe sacrificed? Their very lives? I had looked through each of their desks, had seen all the photos of happier times, of things collected from their travels, little notes posted here and there from people that had loved them, admired them, depended on them. Had any of them survived? Had the lady who had lost her shoes survived? Blood had coated one of the shoes, the other lost near her desk. She had a child, what looked to be a husband, a life surrounded by love.

Others had hobbies like golf, baseball, photography. By going through their desks, I had figured out who was the sportswriter, who wrote for the entertainment section, who did the editing. Did the editor stand at the front when they came to purge, attempting to shield his or her employees, to save them from the bullets that had riddled the downstairs wall? Did he or she throw themselves on the mercy of the men with the guns in their hands? Probably. 

Did they cry out as they were herded down to their deaths, knowing that their loved ones would probably never find out about their fates? How many had actually shown up that day, one last day to frantically rush out one last edition of a newspaper that very few ever read? I had seen the stacks and stacks of unsent papers. The internet had been shut down around the same time, so no computer version had been seen either. It was a futile attempt to show the citizens that were still sane, that in this godforsaken city that there were still good people on the job, trying to say with their words and their pictures that what Gilead was doing was wrong.

I had dreamed once of becoming a reporter. My first job had been at a magazine, a small magazine, but the urge was there to get the truth out, even if it was just about a specific subject such as gardening or woodworking. I drifted into the job I had held right before all the chaos. It was a good job, one that I loved because of the people who worked with me. Were they all dead? Had any of them survived the war? Had any of them made it to Canada? None of them had believed that this could happen in the United States. It had been contained, luckily. Other countries. Damn, did I know what had happened in other countries? Canada hadn’t let it dissolve into chaos. Mexico? By what little I had learned from the trade delegation, they were headed that way. 

Instead of using science to solve the issue of why women were not bearing as many children, they used religion. They skewed religion to their needs. Fuck that. Fucking fuck that.

I dragged my finger over each headline, each one getting larger, bolder, arguing that the world was going to end soon if people did not pull together as one group. Instead, terrorists had destroyed their government, took control and now raped and impregnated prisoners, taking their babies if they were born alive. Yes, they were prisoners of war. None of them wanted this. How could they? 

I attempted to figure out each one of their names. Jamie loved wine. Celeste marched for animal causes. Henry loved his time on Cape Cod. Davis squeezed his own juice every morning. Lucinda had an impressive collection of Red Sox memorabilia. They all had lives worth living. Whether they fetched coffee or wrote a weekly column, they were a team, a family. The pictures told me that story. Softball games, nights out drinking, picnics in a park. 

And there were children. Tim had two kids, both sons, both young adults. His status as editor of the paper was printed boldly on the front page of that last edition. I had taken to sleeping in his office often, surrounded by soft cushions, a jar of peppermints, a hidden stash of cigarettes in the bottom drawer. His numerous awards dotted haphazardly around the small room, windows clear so that he could see what was going on at a moment’s notice. Did he stand there, when the troops had entered, guns ready to mow down anyone who dare stand up to them? A forgotten tie draped over his chair, a cup that had once held coffee sat at the ready if he were to return. His degree from Boston University hung proudly behind his chair so that everyone who entered his domain knew that Boston was his home. Did he stand in front of them all against that wall, trying to protect them one last time? Did he think of his sons as the people around him prayed, screamed, chanted to be let go? What mass grave did they all end up? Would anyone remember?

I pulled out a button-up shirt that he had stored in a cabinet, probably for those days he had to stay over, to change into the next morning. It was clean but still smelled like a man. It smelled like Luke. They must have used some of the same products. It brought her back to her own husband, who had tried to protect her and Hanna that one last time. Was he frantic, just as in her mind the editor had been? 

Did they all grasp hands being led down to their doom? I found an engagement ring, forgotten under one of the machines down in that tomb. I’d taken to calling it that. A tomb, pockmarked with bullet holes, dried blood that had seeped into the concrete that had hardened to keep the building standing once upon a time.

The shoe I had found had possibly belonged to Celeste. At her desk, I had discovered some gum in the top drawer. As I chewed it, I looked at her photos. She smiled next to a man that looked exactly like her. Being in her fifties, she would have not been eligible to become a handmaiden. Instead, she would have been sent to the colonies or become a servant. Because she was a reporter, and a damn good reporter if by the awards next to her computer, the troops would have shot her first. A strong woman was a dead woman in this new world I lived in. I startled when I saw a photo of a cat, hearts surrounding the shot. Oh god, she had a cat, probably deeply loved. I couldn’t have cats because Luke was allergic. Hanna and I often visited our next-door neighbor to get our cat fix. When he went away on vacation, we’d offer to feed and play with Max for nothing. Was Celeste’s cat just as loved? It probably had died waiting for her to come home. Animals were not allowed in Gilead. They were either eaten or the dogs were used to control people. I hadn’t seen or petted any animals in so long, I wouldn’t know what it felt like to love such a small creature.

Davis stood proud and tall in his photos, right next to his partner John. I had figured out his name by pawing through the papers on the desk. A marriage announcement had been placed in the paper a mere month before Congress had been gunned down. Davis had been a big man, with a quick smile and bright blue eyes. John was just the very opposite, short in stature, brown eyes with a few freckles that stood out in the pictures. In every photo, they looked to be deeply in love. Did they hang Davis’s body out for all to see, with the word gay attached to it? Did they actually care that Davis and John had a right to live the life they lived? 

Lucinda stood in Fenway Park, a big smile on her face. Next to her stood what looked to be her younger brother. He was a teen while she looked to be much younger than her mid-twenties vibe. Right out of college was my guess. From the photo right next to her computer, she played soccer in college. Another pic showed her drinking a beer with several friends, a local bar down the street that I had once gone to with Moira. It was always hopping with a younger crowd. Both Moira and I had been hit on several times before we could even order a drink, much less sit down. I took it in stride while Moira had just laughed it off. Taking my hand in hers had many a man backing off. I was new to dating Luke and really did not want the attention. Lucinda looked happy. She was of childbearing age, so why wasn’t she chosen? Only the meek, Moira had once mentioned. Only act meek I had shot back. I didn’t have a meek bone in my body until Hanna had happened. Being a mother had softened my perspective of the world. When I wanted something, I went out and got it, everyone else be damned. I had gone after Luke with an intensity that I haven’t since matched. Hanna tempered my attitude just a bit. They were my world and I had to protect them.

Seeing Fenway Park in those photos brought back nightmare after nightmare, the feeling of that noose tightening around my neck for just a moment’s time. They had done it to scare us all into submission. For just a moment, I had welcomed oblivion, just as Janine had by jumping off that bridge. As all the other women cried around me, a calmness surged through my body. I wanted to leave this chaos and never return. The nightmares that followed often had me waking with a scream. Seeing that photo of Lucinda at Fenway had reopened the wound. That was a place where dreams were made once upon a time. A place where families shared a day watching a baseball game, their favorite team swinging a bat at a small ball that came whizzing by them at breakneck speed. The cheers that erupted from a homerun rushed through me as I remembered a day that Luke and I had shared not long after we had met. He was more of a football fan but had agreed to go with me. I cheered as Luke just looked at me like who was this person. I often wondered what happened to the players. They were elite. They had money. Getting on a jet to travel to other countries had been the solution to that problem. Luke and I didn’t have that choice. Getting visas and getting out of the country had been a long process, especially since we had Hanna.

A little girl almost Hanna’s age was posted on Henry’s board, right behind his desk so that he could see her as he worked. Her curly blonde hair stood on end as she smiled for the camera. Where was she now? Was she in one of those places that held Hanna? Was she getting re-educated like Hanna was, to love Gilead? The girl stuck her tongue through the space where her front teeth had been. Did she get money from the Tooth Fairy as Hanna had? Hanna had only lost a few before all of this. I had been tempted to tell her that the Tooth Fairy didn’t exist, but Luke had stopped me, telling me to let her have this one. Luke had always been more whimsical than I was. Would he still be that whimsical dad or hardened by what had happened?

Jamie stood with what looked to be his wife, wine glass in one hand, the other arm tightly around her waist. They were both older, looking settled in their lives together. No children in any of the photos, but there were several dogs here and there. A wine label was posted next to a vacation photo, somewhere warm. When had I last felt warm? Another day in Fenway, when I had taken Hanna for the first time was warm and muggy. Luke hadn’t come because of work. I had been ticked at first for him canceling at the last minute but had gotten over it once I was sitting in the stands with Hanna at my side. Hanna mostly wanted to eat and walk, but just being there, enjoying the crowds, was worth it to me. Jamie looked as if he enjoyed life also. Did he pray to see his loving wife one more time, if just to tell her he’d had a nice life? Was she even still alive?

Gathering as many photos as I could, I made my way downstairs to the tomb. I put as many photos as I could up with tape, lit several candles that I had found here and there that people kept in their desks for blackouts, and said a little prayer for each of them, along with the many others whose pictures I still needed to gather. I wanted someone, anyone to remember what they had done, even if it had all been futile. I had been silenced too long, stifled in that house of horror that they made me call home. It wasn’t home. It was a house of horror, where the occupants could turn on me at a moment’s notice. Trust no one had been the motto on so many television shows. It was the life I lived now.

Were they lucky they didn’t have to lead that kind of life? Who was I to say they were lucky they died a brutal, early death? Life was life, no matter what the circumstances. I would fight to the death to survive, if just for Hanna. Hanna deserved a better life than what they were providing for her right now. 

So I said a prayer for Tim, the editor, Celeste, the cat lover, Davis who loved John with all his might, young Lucinda and her baseball dreams, Henry and his blonde-haired snaggle-tooth daughter, and Jamie, with his wine and wife proudly displayed across his desk. I’d keep them all alive in my mind somehow, so that when this was all over and I prayed that this would all be over someday, I could tell their stories, what might have happened to them, so that if any of their loved ones were still alive, they knew that each one of them fought the good fight and died while trying.


End file.
